First up, the company formally confirms its intent to open pre-orders without the need for invites, with its goal to get things started in late October.

But as for the pre-orders themselves, they’re not just going to be open from then on out. Instead, OnePlus will selectively open pre-orders for a set period of time – it doesn’t say if that will be a matter of hours, or days. Anyone who wants to can place a pre-order during that period, and get their name on the waiting list. OnePlus isn’t placing restrictions on how many orders it will accept during one of these sessions, so your wait time will be determined both by the level of interest and how early you get your order in.

If you change your mind (maybe deciding that the wait is just too long), you can cancel that pre-order and remove your name from the waitlist.

And while pre-orders won’t require invites, OnePlus isn’t doing away with invites, either. In fact, you can convert one of these pre-orders into an outright order by applying an invite code (if you happen to find one) to it afterward.

It’s not an ideal system, we’ll say that, but we’ll take what we can get. And certainly, it’s preferable to the invite-only arrangement.